"Is your name Mike Gannon?" asked Russ. "That's my name, little Bunker--I don't know your first name." "It's Russ, and his is Laddie," and Russ pointed to his brother. By this time the cat, seeing that Zip was not going to chase her any more, had taken the arch out of her back and her tail looked like a small frankfurter sausage, and not like a big bologna one. "Well, Russ and Laddie Bunker, I'm glad to see you," said Mr. Gannon. "And so you live over at Lake Sagatook, and not here at Green Pond. Why did you come so far?" "To see you," answered Russ. "To see _me_!" exclaimed the red-haired lumberman in surprise. "Well, I'm no great sight to look at, that's sure. But still I'm glad to see you. Are you sure you wanted me?" "You're red-haired," said Russ slowly, as though going over certain points. "That's right," said the lumberman. "And you cut down trees," went on Russ. "Correct." "And were you ever a tramp?" Russ asked. "Well, yes, you could call me that," admitted the red-haired man, speaking slowly. "I'm a sort of tramp lumberman. I never like to stay long in one place, and so I'm roving all over. You could call me a tramp." "That's good," said Russ. "Well, sometimes it is, and sometimes it isn't," said Mr. Gannon. "It isn't so bad tramping in the summer, but in the winter it isn't so nice. You get cold and hungry." "I meant it's good 'cause you're the very one we want to see," went on Russ, who felt quite big and grown-up, now that he and Laddie had come this far alone. "Now where is the ragged coat?" "The ragged coat?" questioned Mr. Gannon. He did not seem to know what Laddie meant. "Didn't you get a ragged cent from my daddy's real estate office about a month ago?" went on Russ in surprise. "It was in Pineville, where we live when we aren't visiting Grandma Bell. Did you get a ragged coat there?" "Pineville--Pineville?" murmured the red-haired lumberman to himself, as if trying to remember. "Yes, I did tramp through there and--Hold on!" he cried. "I remember now! I did ask at an office if they had an old coat they could give me. I hadn't one worth wearing. I did get an old coat, and, as you say, it was ragged." "Our father gave you that," went on Laddie. "Or he told one of his real estate men to do it." "Yes, that's right--I remember now. I did beg a coat from a real estate office," said Mr. Gannon. "And that was your father's place, was it? Well, I'm glad to meet you boys. Your father was kind to me. But Pineville is a long way from here. It took me almost a month to walk it, stopping to work now and then." "We came in the train," said Laddie, "and I know a riddle about the conductor punching the tickets, but I don't know----" Russ didn't want his brother to get to talking about riddles at a time like this. So he interrupted with: "And have you got that ragged coat now, Mr. Tramp--I mean Mr. Gannon? Have you got that coat now?" "Have I got that ragged coat, you mean?" asked the man.